favorite oxymoron

[lvick]

I'll start with the mother of all oxymorons:
jumboshrimp,
what's your favorite,
Larry

[radar ralf]

Oxymorons:
Army Intelligence
Neo-classic
Deafening silence
"Parting is such sweet sorrow."


And how about spoonerisms:
"He's a real fart smeller."
"...a bunch of cunning runts."
"I think you have it bass-ackwards."
A fellow named Sheb Wooley used to do parodies of stories under the name of "Ben Colder"; the one that immediately comes to mind is "Beeping Sleauty and the Pansome Hrince", but he did several take-offs.

And here are some examples of malapropism:
"I think that it's a mute point."
"Don't take that fellow for granite."

And then there are some expressions that could have come out of the mouth of Yogi Berra:
"Never eat on an empty stomach."
"You're skating on thin water."

[dawnbird]

My favorite oxymoron is high-school education.

------------------
possibly the world's only naive cynic

[the first supraliminal]

Pretty ugly
Awfully good
Original copy
Initial conclusion
Seriously funny

And, of course, my favorite: Bad beer.



------------------
¾È ³ç, ÁÖ µ¿ ÀÏ

[ebeth]

What? No one mentioned Hot Chili?

[Shirley Ujest]

German Humor.

Bad Accident
Bad Cold

[tetzel1517]

Congressional Ethics

[AWB]

This is stretching it, but: a song called "Ironic" that lists a bunch of situations that aren't ironic.

[Drain Bead]

Microsoft Works.

[dougie_monty]

A lawyer wrote a humorous book about his profession, in which he includes these oxymorons:
Scholar-athlete
Amtrak schedule
Military intelligence
Legal ethics
Justice Rehnquist

[Gilligan]

Authentic replica
Video library
Business casual
Semi formal
White chocolate

[handy]

ex-addict.

[Neobican]

The best oxymoron is "rap music"

[glee]

What's the word for needless total repetition? (e.g. a contradictary oxymoron)

[lvick]

Hospital food,
and BTW Handy, you're mistaken about recovering addicts,
Larry

[Wordsmith]

What about "Civil War?"

------------------
Wordsmith: One of the elite few who knows that George Herbert Walker Bush was a Huge Berserk Rebel Warthog.

[Satan]

Anyone who has ever used this company to ship anything will immediately know it's name itself as an oxymoron:

Airbourne Express

------------------
Brian O'Neill
CMC International Records
rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html (http://rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html)

ICQ 35294890
AIM Scrabble1
Yahoo Messenger Brian_ONeill

[handy]

Oh, alright then. Scratch 'exaddict' add,
'recovering addict.'

No offence ivick.

[shiner bock]

guest host

used by The Tonight Show whenever someone would stand in for johnny carson.

[Omniscient]

glee...redundant?

[red wings]

metal wood

[glee]

omniscient..no, I'm thinking of a word as 'specialised/educated' as oxymoron. I used it as a mnemonic, as in:

'A (blank) is a contradictory oxymoron.'

I tried my thesauras - no luck. How else do you find these words....ask the SDMB, of course!

[smarks]

smart ass

Glee - I've always called those internal redundancies:

very active two-year old is my personal favorite of those.




------------------
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html (http://members.aol.com/majormd/index.html)

[glee]

Tautology!

- 'contradictory oxymoron' is a tautology

- 'non-repetitive tautology' is an oxymoron

[kellibelli]

loving husband.

[stpete_macrtst]

plastic silverware

[RealityChuck]

"jumbo shrimp" is not an oxymoron:

"Jumbo" = large
"shrimp" = shellfish

Nothing contradictory about that.

[micro user]

radar ralf's "spoonerisms" reminded me of:

What's the difference between the "Rockettes" and a 3-ring circus?

One of them is a cunning array of stunts!

and,

What's the difference between a rooster and a lawyer?

One of them clucks defiance!

[Monty]

shiner bock, Member, posted 08-18-1999 07:36 PMguest host
used by The Tonight Show whenever someone would stand in for johnny carson.

SB: you must've missed the show when Johnny asked Ed who is favourite guest host is. Ed answered, "Johnny Carson."

[Persephone]

One I heard last night at the end of a History Channel special about the '70s...

'70's chic. BWAAAAAhahahahaha!

[Andy]

(For aircraft)

Near miss

[The Ryan]

ebeth, Shirley Ujest- I think you’re thinking of redundancies, not oxymorons.

Giligan- actually, a replica made by the same person as the original is authentic; one made by someone else is inauthentic.

kellibelli- isn’t that kind of a mean thing to say?

glee- “redundancy” and “tautology” aren’t quite the same thing. A tautology is statement that states an obviously true fact, e.g. “Everyone that owns a red car owns at least one car.”, “The fittest members of a species tend to reproduce more than the others.” (creationist argue that evolution is flawed because it’s based upon a tautology. In other words, it’s obviously wrong because it’s based upon an obviously true statement. ???) “contradictory oxymoron” is not a tautology because it’s not a statement. “Oxymorons are contradictory.” would be a tautology.


------------------
-Ryan
" 'Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter.' " -Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

[glee]

The Ryan,

A fine distinction there!

Of course, I'm looking for a mnemonic using 'tautology' and 'oxymoron'. How about:

a necessarily false tautology is an oxymoron

Would a 'necessarily true tautological statement' be a tautology?

[Polycarp]

OK, how about an altruistic shellfish?

a green (=unripe) orange?

the late General Early?

a despicable noble?

a depressed gay? (while we're at it, how about a male Lesbian -- entirely possible; The island of Lesbos must have inhabitants of both sexes)

[nhaerens]

In Canada there is a party called

Progressive Conservatives

How about

Military Intelligence

or

That guy was really dead